New York to New Haven
by fucking salad
Summary: Future!fiction where Rachel takes the train to New Haven every weekend to visit her girlfriend and spills her and Quinn's love story to a stranger on the train. Inspired by tumblr user bunnyearsberry.


**This is a Faberry one-shot. It's set in the future, let's say December 2012.**

**This was inspired by tumblr user bunnyearsberry. Thank you.**

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><p><em><strong>New York to New Haven<strong>_

"Wait, so was it that time she slapped you?" the stranger asked a nineteen year old brunette, on the train that would take her from Grand Central Terminal to New Haven.

"No, no, no, you're mixing things up, sir."

The man watched the young girl with mixed feelings clouding up his mind. He's been listening to her talk since he had gotten on the train in Harlem, New York. She was already sat there, and she looked a bit lonely, and there were no near seats available apart from that one so he had sat beside her.

As soon as he had approached the seat however, the girl's eyes had lit up with a sparkle that almost looked out of place at that early hour, while rain was ticking and tapping against the windows of that dingy train.

Everybody had been quiet for a while after the train left Harlem, but the man could see in the quick swinging motion of the girl's legs, dangling off the edge of the seat because she was quite too short to reach the ground, that she was excited. It looked like she just couldn't wait. For what, he just didn't know.

Until she had begun to speak. She had started talking about her high school, and her friends, and New York, and Barbra Streisand occasionally, and God knows what else in that fast, complicated jabber that sounded like one of those pieces of sheet music with musical notes all across the staff, and foreign looking words scribbled alongside it. It looked tangled, and somewhat impenetrable, so he just listened, sometimes missing out words, and details, and names, both because she spoke quick and in paragraphs, and because he was not fully awake yet. It was eight in the morning, for God's sake!

So he obviously asked her the wrong question.

"No, no, no, you're mixing things up, sir. That was after the Prom, towards the end of Junior year. I'm talking about Senior Year, when Quinn…"

"Quinn?"

He was confused, and couldn't wait for her to get off the train. He just wanted to lie back and sleep. But no, she had to tell her story. In a clipped, excited voice. In paragraphs.

"Yes, sir, Quinn! Have you been listening to me at all?"

She looked slightly hurt and offended, while he was terrified she would start back up from the beginning, so he just nodded, and said, trying to muster up some words he had heard here and there in her speech: "Of course! The Prom, the Glee club, Aural Intensity, Jesse, the Warblers, Regionals… Nationals!" he all but yelled, patting his back internally, terrified she would scold him, "Mr. Shuester, Barbra Streisand, Patti Lupone, Finn, Kurt, Mercedes? Yeah, Mercedes, then Puck, Quinn, Sam, Artie, Santana, Brittany, Mike, Blaine, Rory, Sugar, Dave… who else?"

"Tina! Don't forget Tina. She is often overlooked, and I honestly don't know why, she has a beautiful soprano voice."

She nodded, trying to get her point across, and he nodded breathlessly as he watched her get back on track with her story, and this time, he truly listened, because he had a feeling she would stop talking all of a sudden and start testing him at a random point of her rant in a couple of minutes, and he surely didn't want her to start back up from the beginning. God, he just wanted to visit his mom in Hartford.

"So, as I was saying," the brunette said with a smile, "Quinn and I were friends by December of Senior Year. Funny how life turns out, huh?"

"Yeah… funny."

Rachel Berry looked very different from the previous year, but of course he couldn't know that.

Her bangs had been pulled to a side, her hair had grown a little, her clothes were less vintage, and more… New York. Her eyes had regained the passion and the unapologetic drive they'd almost lost at some point during Senior Year. Her smile had grown in width and intensity, and it was now brighter than the neon lights that were shining above them.

Nevertheless, her yellow beanie was still there, perched on top of her head.

"I obviously didn't know I was developing romantic feelings for Quinn, at the time, but the high opinion and admiration I had always felt towards her were always there, and-"

"Wait, romantic feelings?"

"Sir, I already told you- actually, I have been unmannerly. My name is Rachel Berry, nice to meet you," she said, extending her tiny hand covered in a soft-looking mitten.

The man smiled politely at her, a bit taken aback, took the girl's hand and shook it, saying, "Hi Rachel, my name is Rick Sondheim."

"Oh my, like Stephen Sondheim, the composer and lyricist of Sweeney Todd, Follies, West Side Story and…" then the girl's eyes widened almost comically, and she blurted out, seizing his arm "Sir, are you related to him? A cousin, perhaps? Or, or- oh boy, are you his son?"

"No, Rachel, I'm afraid not."

And if he had to be honest, he was a bit curious about the girl now.

Rachel relaxed, and kept going with her story.

"So, as I was saying, the high opinion and admiration I had always felt towards Quinn was always there. I might have been not aware of the fact that said feelings were slowly edging towards a deep attraction, or, in all likelihood, I had decided to ignore them. Just like I had decided to ignore Quinn's mixed signals. So, when Finn proposed to me-"

"Wait, are you married? With the vacuous quarterback from high school?"

Rachel showed indignation, and quickly said, "I never said he was vacuous, I just implied he can sometimes be… a bit… slow? Anyway, he proposed to me, and I have to admit he was quite sweet, but, even though I couldn't admit that to myself nor to him at the time, I could never project or plan a future life with him. He was a nice boy, and he was one of the first people with whom I bonded at the glee club, but I could just not see myself in New York with him. Yes, he was my first boyfriend, and we had fun, but my dreams were bigger than Lima. They still are."

She silently nodded to herself, staring down at her joined hands in her lap, and for the first time since the man had set foot on that train, he saw Rachel being quiet and peaceful.

"You see, when I think about NYADA, which is the college I'm attending now, my thoughts always go back to the glee club. We were friends, at least in Senior Year, and we supported our life choices mutually. It was simple, we had the same interests, and we loved each other. But when Finn proposed to me, some of them started questioning if we were ready for that kind of commitment and there were some tensions. We weren't ready for a marriage, of course, but I was too stubborn to see it. NYADA and New York felt so far away, and I wanted some kind of assurance, some pledge I could hold onto right in that moment, at least until my NYADA letter arrived. When I think about that crazed week, all I can remember clearly is turning to Quinn first, to ask her some kind of advice."

She turned quiet again, but this time, she reached behind her to open her backpack, then her eyes flickered to Rick's for a second and turned again to her lap, where her right hand was twirling some kind of white flower she had taken from her backpack. It looked like a peony, or maybe a gardenia.

"When I saw her in that bathroom, applying her lipstick absentmindedly in front of that mirror, I felt something inside of me flip over. I remember pondering over that eerie sensation in the doorway, stopping for a second, right there. But then I shook it off, dismissing it as the stress and anxiety Finn's proposal had caused me. But you see, sir, I was so blind. And stubborn. Oh, Liza Minelli, was I stubborn."

The man chuckled at the actress's mention, and he was completely captured by Rachel Berry's story. She had a way of telling about her own life that was so heartfelt, intense and ardent that Rick knew he was speaking to a future star. So he made a note to himself to ask her for something very precise later.

"So, what did Quinn say about Finn's proposal?"

Rachel smiled, a smile so bright and shrewd that he wanted her to tell him the rest of her story, all at once, right now. But Rachel Berry knew how to have her audience at the edge of their seats, so she kept going.

"Oh, well, Quinn told me her opinion, and of course she was right about everything. She told me that I didn't need Finn as a kind of assurance, and that I had an amazing life ahead of me," Rachel raised her right hand to her nose and smelled the white flower for a second, "she said Finn would just be an anchor from my past which would be holding me down in the lights of New York, and she said that if I wanted to truly be happy, I had to say goodbye to him."

"What did you say to her?"

"When I turned to her to ask for some kind of advice, I wasn't actually looking for advice. I was looking for a confirmation that I was doing the right thing. I was looking for support. So I didn't listen to her, and said yes to Finn."

"Oh, no."

Rachel smiled into the gardenia, and said playfully, "But sir, you still have to hear the rest of my story!"

"Go on, Rachel Berry, tell me the rest of your story."

And maybe it was Rachel's smile, or maybe it was her eyes, but she looked like she was holding something back, like a brilliant joke or a smart remark. Rick would remember this look on her face, eight years from now, sat in the Ambassador Theater in New York, watching Rachel Berry perform in the musical Chicago as Velma Kelly with a very similar expression on her face. Accomplished, somehow. Aware that her life turned out just the way she wanted.

"Very well, Mr. Sondheim- oh dear, it really feels like I'm talking to Stephen. Anyway, the morning after I had said yes to Finn, I received my letter from NYADA. I was a finalist. I was suddenly happy, more than I had ever been, and I realized that just thinking about Finn got me down. Then my dads surprised us at school-"

"Your dads?"

Rachel smiled with what Rick supposed was her show smile, and nodded fervently.

"Yes, sir, my dads, Hiram and Leroy Berry! You see, they are the sweetest men around, and they instilled the love for musical theater in me," she put both of her hands to her chest.

"So my dads, to whom I hadn't said a thing about Finn and I getting married, surprised us at school and invited Finn over for dinner with both of our families. It didn't go so well, as you can imagine, and they tried to get in our way. We didn't change our minds about the wedding, and after poor Dave attempted suicide-"

"Karofsky attempted suicide?"

The man stared wide-eyed at the tiny brunette.

"Well, Mr. Sondheim, I see you can remember my friends' names now. Yes, Dave attempted suicide, it was a very sad week and I don't really want to get into too much detail about that. Just know that he's happy now. Kurt is still in touch with him, and he's studying sports law at Stanford. Anyways, I decided to bring forward the date of our wedding-"

"Why?"

"Mr. Sondheim-"

"Call me Rick, please."

"But I like to call you Mr. Sondheim."

Rachel looked at Rick with such sweet eyes he just couldn't say no to her.

"You see, Mr. Sondheim, Finn was so in love with me, and I guess I loved him, at some extent, and he believed I was his only chance at pursuing something in his life, and of getting out of Lima. I wasn't, of course, but he was so excited to finally feel like he had something he was sure about in his life… I just couldn't bring myself to break his heart. And so I decided to start our life together right after Regionals, which we won, by the way, also thanks to my solo performance," she looked proud and thrilled for a second, but that expression soon fell to a serious one, "and after the competition, Finn and I headed to the City Counsil to get married. They were all there: Santana, Brittany, Mercedes, Tina, Blaine, Kurt, Mike, Sam, Puck, Artie, Rory, my dads, Carole and Burt, Sue and Mr. Shuester. But Quinn was not there."

Rachel's words fell somewhere between her gardenia and Rick in a quiet whisper.

"You see, Mr. Sondheim, I don't like to talk about this particular thing. I don't like to because I cannot refrain from feeling guilty for what happened, but… since I really like your surname, and just because you seem to enjoy the story, I'll make an exception for you," and she taps Rick's forearm lightly.

"Quinn was not there. I texted her and she texted me back saying she had passed by her home to grab her bridesmaids dress, and that she would be there soon. The minutes ticked by, and Quinn wasn't there yet. Finn pushed me to start the wedding because we would have lost our slot. So I texted Quinn again, waited for her reply, which simply said 'On my way', and said to the marriage officiant we could start the wedding. And so we did."

Rachel looked down at her gardenia again, smoothing down the petals of the flower with her mitten-clad hand.

"We started, and yet I was still thinking about Quinn. Why wasn't Quinn there? Why was she taking so much time? And why couldn't I stop thinking about her? I was marrying Finn, and yet I wanted Quinn to burst into the room, yell 'I object' and proceed to sing me some heartfelt ballad. Of course, I didn't really go that far with my thinking, because the wedding didn't last that much and sooner than we could be declared husband and wife, my phone started ringing."

Rachel shifted her gaze to stare right into Rick's eyes.

"I recognized Quinn's ringtone right away, it was 'Bubbly', by Colbie Caillat, because she once told me she liked that song, and therefore I liked it too, because it reminded me of her. Right then and there, while the song was playing, I wondered why she liked that song, and why I felt so nervous and somewhat excited to hear that song. I wondered why, right in the middle of my wedding, I still was thrilled to answer to Quinn's call to hear her voice and get her to calm me down. Little did I know…"

Rachel's right eye suddenly let a tear fall down her cheek to the tip of her nose, and when she thumbed it away, she straightened up her shoulders and tilted her chin up.

"I stopped the officiant, and that's when Finn began to lose his mind. I answered my phone and at the other end of the line was the head physician of the trauma ward of Lima's Saint Rita Medical Center. She had had a car crash. A bad one. As soon as he introduced himself in that miserable tone, I disconnected the call, took off my white heels, ripped that stupid bridal veil off my head and started running."

Rick knew this was one of those moments he would've always remembered. Maybe it was the enthusiastic expression in Rachel's eyes, or maybe it was the tone of her voice, but he knew he was witnessing something great.

"And I ran, I ran, I ran – you see, I'm fairly athletic thanks to my daily ellipctical workouts – and I ran, and right then and there, while I scrambled into the hospital, barefoot and in a bridal dress I knew I'd never use, and started to ascend the stairs to the traumatology ward… then and there, I realized I was in love with her. I realized I was in love with her and I cared for her more than I liked to admit to myself."

Rick was grinning brightly at this point, and wanted to buy some popcorns, or at least have some kind of snack to munch on which would be apt for the occasion.

"So when I found her room and realized she was in a coma, after some hours of crying and self-hatred, I called my dads and asked them to bring me some clothes, and I lived in that room for the month to come. When she started to get better, and the doctors announced she would wake up soon, I went to the nearest store and bought stuffed animals, lollipops, cute pajamas with golden stars and dancing cupcakes on them, and put them all in her bed, right on her pillow, in her arms, beneath the covers, on the nightstand… I hung Beth's drawings on the wall just opposite her bed. She woke up in a colored room, with Beth, her mum, her dad, the whole of the Glee club and I by her side."

Her inflection suggested that she was done with her story, and Rick looked quite disappointed.

"Wait, but what happened next?"

"Next? Well, as soon as everyone slowly left, we started talking and I told her I felt guilty for what had happened, and I cried and she cried, and I kissed her and she kissed me right back. The rest is history."

She was smiling again, in a bashful way. The bashful smile that only broke out when Quinn was in her mind, or right there with her.

"So, you see Mr. Sondheim, we now visit each other every weekend. That's why I am on this train. I'm going to New Haven, where her campus is. You see, she studies drama at Yale."

Rachel Berry was quite an interesting individual. When she was happy and proud, she quite couldn't hold it back. It somehow shined through, it poked from her eyes and her smile and the tone of her voice. Like it did now.

"What's up with that flower? You have been twirling it between your fingers all through our conversation."

To be honest with himself, Rick knew this wasn't a conversation, but rather a monologue. Yet, he liked the idea of being a part of this story.

"Oh, this is the reminder to myself that, deep down, I've always loved her. Even when my mind was too clouded with Finn, and jealousy, and singing competitions. You see, when Finn went to the Prom with her, he asked me what kind of wrist corsage he could get her. And I blurted out the answer, because I guess that, deep down, I had fantasised of inviting her to the Prom. I told him to get her something not too showy so that it wouldn't distract others from her face, a white gardenia perhaps, tied with a green ribbon so that it would match her eyes."

Rick knew, right there and then, that this was a story of true love. The kind of love he had never encountered. The kind of love that, once lost, it never returns. The kind of love that sweeps you off your feet.

Quinn and Rachel, Rachel and Quinn.

"So now, I carry this gardenia with me, which is fake so that it never dies. Sometimes, I like to think about what would've happened to me had I not realized I was in love with her. Maybe I would've never come to New York, maybe I'd still be stuck with Finn. I don't know. Thank God I don't know."

Rachel Berry smiled to her fake gardenia, as a metallic voice announced the next stop: New Haven.

"So that's your stop."

Rick was a bit sad. He wished he would visit her mom more often, so that Rachel could update him with the latest news. Maybe he'd even meet Quinn, someday.

"Yes, Mr. Sondheim. I'm sorry, how rude of me – where are you going?"

"I'm visiting my mom in Hartford."

A pause, a quiet smile.

"I'm glad I happened to catch this train and I'm glad I met you. That was a wonderful story, Rachel Berry," he smiled brightly to her, and then he remembered about something.

"Oh, actually. Could you please give me your autograph?"

Rachel widened her already incredibly big eyes.

"An autograph? Really? You're the first to ask me. I'll have to call my dads to tell them now."

"Well, I certainly won't be the last. Could you maybe write the date and make it personal, so that I can show off ten years from now, when you're at some theater at Broadway playing the leading role?"

Rachel brought her hands to her chest, grateful as Rick handed her a piece of paper and a pen.

"But of course," she took off her mitten from her right hand, and she started writing careful not to let Rick read.

Rachel Berry then handed the paper and pen back to Rick, putting her mitten back on and saying "Can I say to my friends and to my dads and to Quinn that Mr. Sondheim was the first to ask me an autograph?" and as the train slowly came to a halt, he nodded, and she stood up and walked to the sliding door exit with her bright pink backpack with a golden star patch on it.

Rick looked at her from his seat, and before she stepped off the train and down onto the platform, Rachel turned around, stared at him with kind eyes, yelled "Goodbye, Mr. Sondheim!" then whipped her head around and finally left.

Rick then gazed at his lap, and read what was written on his piece of paper in a whimsical but neat handwriting.

_12th December, 2012_

_To dear Mr. Sondheim,_

_a kind man, a great listener._

_I hope we will meet again._

_I'd be glad to introduce you to Quinn, so maybe she could fill you in with the rest of our story._

_I hope you find a love like mine, and with that gentle smile, I'm inclined to say you will._

_Rachel Berry x_

When the train started moving again, Rick shot his eyes up to look out of the train window, and he could've sworn he saw the brunette being tightly hugged by a tall blonde. He watched them share that silent embrace until the train turned a corner, and then he couldn't see them anymore.


End file.
